I'm sure our "blunt warnings" to China will be well received and this will all be over soon with our glorious leader emerging victorious in whatever it is we think we're doing.
Just gotta convince a few more people that Russia's goal was to conquer Europe and then we can let Russia have what they've wanted for the past 9 years and what they clearly laid out as their demands a year ago so the narrative can roll on about how democracy is being defended.
Not enough Ukrainians have died yet to make democracy "worth" it.
Russia crossed a huge line when it attacked, for no reason, a sovereign nation.
The only question is is what should the us do going forward.
There are two fundamental considerations
How does it affect us
How does what we and others do influence others or Russia future behavior, who may have ideas about attacking neighbors and will those possible attacks impact us.
Remember crime - and what russia did is a crime - is a function of risk / reward. What are the consequences of the action relative to the perceived reward.
To date it’s clear Russia perceives the reward outweighs the risk.
The only question is is what should the us do going forward.
There's also the increasingly important question of what we're able to do.
EDIT: I say it's increasingly important, but that's only because people have started to realize what it takes to match means to ends (and realizing that our resources are indeed finite). We should've considered what ends we wanted to accomplish before we just started shipping weapons, so we could determine whether we could achieve them.
It is all bull shit. We are a nation led by liars, and cowards. Our resources are unlimited if ewe have the guts to use them. And the ideas that there can be a negotiated settlement is the same as saying let Putin win.
Just recently we saw Harris saying that Russia (Putin) had committed crimes against humanity. BFD. It only took the cowards a year, and how many Ukrainian schools, hospitals, malls, power plants, etc., were destroyed, and are being destroyed, to come to this conclusion.
If this is the way that "freedom" works then who the hell wants it?
Way past time to shit, or get off the pot.
“If you want to love Trump, love him. Go to the rallies. Buy the sneakers. You want to give him absolute power. You want him to be the leader uber allies, you want them to have the right of kings, but stop framing it as patriotism because the one thing you cannot say is that Donald Trump is following the tradition of the founders. He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity, his words not mine. That is monarchy sh*t,..."
Putin says Russia suspending participation in New START treaty, last nuclear weapons pact with U.S.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday that Moscow was suspending its participation in the New START treaty — the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the United States — sharply upping the ante amid tensions with Washington over the fighting in Ukraine. Speaking in his state of the nation address, Putin also said that Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on nuclear weapons tests in place since Cold War times. Explaining his decision to suspend Russia's obligations under New START, Putin accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of openly declaring the goal of Russia's defeat in Ukraine...
Revealed: Leaked document shows how Russia plans to take over Belarus
A leaked internal strategy document from Vladimir Putin’s executive office and obtained by Yahoo News lays out a detailed plan on how Russia plans to take full control over neighboring Belarus in the next decade under the pretext of a merger between the two countries. The document outlines in granular detail a creeping annexation by political, economic and military means of an independent but illiberal European nation by Russia, which is an active state of war in its bid to conquer Ukraine through overwhelming force...
Former Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata, who was deeply involved in mediation efforts between Kyiv and Moscow last year, recently told Axios he doesn’t see any chance there will be a deal to end the war in Ukraine anytime soon...
Interestingly Turkey has been more successful at mediating (i.e., the grain deal). Not entirely sure what that says.
There were a lot of speculative pieces about how this war ends, but more relevant:
A year in, the U.S. makes a pledge: 'Ukraine will decide what victory looks like'
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the U.S. is committed to putting Ukraine in the best possible position to end Russia's unprovoked invasion, "whether or not the fighting continues, or whether or not they decide to go to the negotiating table" — but he declined to say whether battlefield victories or diplomacy were the shared end goal. "Ukraine is gonna decide what victory's gonna look like," Secretary Austin told NPR's Ari Shapiro. "So I don't want to speak for President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian people"...
<excerpt> In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a reinvigorated Western alliance has rallied against Russia, forging what President Biden has trumpeted as a “global coalition.” Yet a closer look beyond the West suggests the world is far from united on the issues raised by the Ukraine war. The conflict has exposed a deep global divide, and the limits of U.S. influence over a rapidly shifting world order. Evidence abounds that the effort to isolate Putin has failed, and not just among Russian allies that could be expected to back Moscow, such as China and Iran... </excerpt>
After the Ukraine war, what comes next? NATO allies don't agree
In nearly a year of war in Ukraine, NATO allies have tried to present a united front. "It is in our security interest to support Ukraine," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told NPR last month at the organization's headquarters in Brussels. "If you look across the alliance, there's a strong, continued support on both sides of the Atlantic." That's true. There are also some big divisions...
One year into Russia’s war against Ukraine, China is offering a 12-point proposal to end the fighting. The proposal follows China’s recent announcement that it is trying to act as mediator in the war that has re-energized Western alliances viewed by Beijing and Moscow as rivals. China’s top diplomat indicated that the plan was coming at a security conference this week in Munich, Germany...
China called for a comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine on Friday and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was open to considering parts of a 12-point peace plan put forward by Beijing... The initial reaction from Kyiv was dismissive, with a senior adviser to President Zelenskiy saying any plan to end the war must involve the withdrawal of Russian troops to borders in place when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. However, Zelenskiy himself struck a more receptive tone in a news conference to mark the first anniversary of the conflict...
G20 tussles over Ukraine war as West steps up sanctions
Finance leaders of the world's top economies sought on Friday to bridge differences over how to deal with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, as the West stepped up sanctions against Moscow. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen accused Russian officials at the two-day Group of Twenty (G20) meeting in the Indian city of Bengaluru of being "complicit" in war atrocities...
Brazil’s Lula Intensifies Diplomatic Push for Peace in Ukraine
Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is intensifying a campaign to mediate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine as he seeks to reinsert Brazil in the global political stage. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin was quoted by Russia’s Tass news agency Thursday as saying Moscow is studying Lula’s proposal to end the conflict as it continues to assess the situation in Ukraine...
On Friday, Zelenskiy indicated he was willing to consider aspects of the Chinese proposal. He said he planned to meet president Xi Jinping and said it would be “useful” to both countries and global security. “As far as I know, China respects historical integrity,” he stressed, adding: “Let’s work China on this point. Why not?”
In an interview with ABC News, U.S. President Joe Biden dismissed the peace plan China put forward for Russia’s full-scale war, noting that it would likely only work in Russia’s favor.
“If Putin is applauding it, so how could it be any good?” Biden said. “I’m not being facetious. I’m being deadly earnest. I’ve seen nothing in the plan that would indicate that there is something that would be beneficial to anyone other than Russia if the Chinese plan were followed,” he said.
Biden also dismissed the idea that Beijing would negotiate peace for Russia’s full-scale war.
“The idea that China is going to be negotiating the outcome of a war that is a totally unjust war for Ukraine is just not rational,” Biden said.
Russia refutes reports about 'non-high-level' talks with Ukraine in Geneva
Russia is unaware of what Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis meant when he said Russia and Ukraine are holding "non-high-level" talks in Geneva, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday. Zakharova stressed in a comment on Telegram that earlier presidential advisor Vladimir Medinsky, appointed as the head of the Russian negotiating team with Ukraine "clearly and unambiguously" stated that he knows nothing about any talks...
Macron to visit China, seek Xi’s help to end Russia-Ukraine war
French President Emmanuel Macron has said he will visit China in April to seek the Chinese government’s help with ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The announcement on Saturday came after China published a 12-point position paper that called for a ceasefire and a “political settlement” to end the year-long conflict...
Is Africa still ‘neutral’ a year into the Ukraine war?
An imposing Russian warship armed with a powerful Zircon hypersonic missile, a handful of Chinese naval destroyers, and a host of frigates and supply vessels docked on South Africa’s coastal shores last Saturday. The coterie of Russian and Chinese maritime firepower, which could easily bring a poorly equipped African nation’s navy to its knees militarily, would be spending days on parade in planned tri-nation naval drills off the coast of Durban in the country’s east...
Blinken in Central Asia to boost ties amid Russia-Ukraine war
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Kazakhstan, his first stop on a Central Asia trip to meet his counterparts from all five former Soviet republics in the region. Blinken sat down for talks with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi and then with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday. A meeting of the so-called C5+1 group, made up of the United States and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, followed...
Blinken warns Central Asia of dangers from war in Ukraine
The Biden administration on Tuesday pledged to support the independence of the five Central Asian nations in a not-so-subtle warning to the former Soviet states that Russia’s value as a partner has been badly compromised by its year-old war against Ukraine. In Kazakhstan for a series of meetings with top Central Asian diplomats, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said no country, particularly those that have traditionally been in Moscow’s orbit, can afford to ignore the threats posed by Russian aggression to not only their territory but to the international rules-based order and the global economy. In all of his discussions, Blinken stressed the importance of respect for “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence”...
The Global South continues to be less keen on this conflict than the West:
Argentina wants Ukraine war to end, says foreign minister
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must stop and has not only destabilized peace but also impacted prices in his country. “Latin America is a zone of peace, the most densely populated zone of peace,” Cafiero told The Associated Press in an interview. “And we have no military developments and no military infrastructure to participate in a war that we demand should be finished and should not continue”...
Can and will Slovakia send fighter jets to Ukraine?
Slovakia's acting Prime Minister Eduard Heger would like to send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, but at the moment, both the constitution and opposition seem to be standing in his way... The number of Slovaks who believe the arguments put forward by Smer-SD party leader Robert Fico appear to be on the rise. The latest polls give Fico almost 18% of votes and indicate that Smer-SD is now the strongest party in Slovakia. Many political experts fear what might come if Smer-SD does win the general election that is due to take place in September and Fico becomes prime minister. In statements reminiscent of Viktor Orban, the prime minister of neighboring Hungary, Fico has vowed to halt weapons deliveries to Ukraine...
Ukraine’s Estonian ally Kaja Kallas faces reelection battle
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of war-torn Ukraine’s firmest European friends, must navigate a tricky general election on Sunday to maintain her country’s ultra-hard stance against Russia... But despite this seemingly comfortable lead, pressure remains on Reform: It could win at the ballot box and still fail to form a majority government, as happened after elections in 2019, and a coalition built around EKRE and the Center Party could eject Kallas from power. The loss of such a key ally would be a blow to Ukraine with the threat of war fatigue looming larger in Western capitals...
Looks like Wagner PMC is in a serious political battle with the regular army and leadership. He's either going to be Great Hero of Russia! or fall out a window...
Looks like Wagner PMC is in a serious political battle with the regular army and leadership. He's either going to be Great Hero of Russia! or fall out a window...
Scholz: Putin has to withdraw troops from Ukraine, this is basic condition for talks
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that the responsibility for ending the war in Ukraine lies with Russian President Vladimir Putin. To my view, it is necessary that Putin understands that he will not succeed with his invasion and his imperialistic aggression and that he has to withdraw troops. This is the basis for talks," he said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS...
I know this has been mentioned before in this and other threads, but Russia's relationship with Ukraine is deeper than just Putin:
Why Ukraine is wary of the Russian opposition
<excerpt> Ukrainians, and many of their supporters from post-Soviet countries that have experienced Russian imperialism firsthand, tend to disagree. They do not see the Russian opposition – and more specifically its most prominent leader today, Alexey Navalny – as future guarantors of peace...
As one might expect, we questioned them about the remarks Navalny made on Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in March 2014. In an interview with Echo of Moscow radio station in October 2014, Navalny admitted that the peninsula had been seized through “outrageous violations of all international norms”, and yet asserted that it would “remain part of Russia” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.
His statement was not simply an assessment of the developments around Crimea. When pressed on whether he would return Crimea to Ukraine were he to become Russia’s president, Navalny wrapped his “No” in an odd rhetorical question: “What? Is Crimea a sandwich or something that you can take and give back?” It was clear that his political position on Crimea was that it should “remain part of Russia”...
The Navalnists responded that under a democratically elected government, Moscow would keep Crimea despite the fact that the annexation was illegal. That is because their policies would have to reflect the will of the Russian people and the overwhelming majority of Russians wanted Crimea to be within Russian borders... </excerpt>
